JimVanMeerten (65.32)

Did the Government really close down?

2

If a Tree falls in the woods and no one is there to hear it, did it make a sound? The recent govenment shutdown has absolutly no effect on me. If the media hadn't paniced, I wouldn't even know it happened.

My father passed away unexpectedly a couple of weeks ago at the age of 59. I'm 26 and, being the more responsible of the two brothers, I am the executor.

In order to set up an estate account and pay for all of the bills using money he had in his account, I had to get a tax idendification number through the IRS. Because they were closed, I couldn't, so I haven't had access to that money to pay for the mounting expenses associated with someone passing away.

My girlfriend's mother is a contractor in the DC area, and has been furloughed for the same amount of time as federal employees. Because she isn't a direct employee, she gets no backpay.

It was a big bummer for researchers across fields from NASA, to arctic, to health sciences.

It was a bummer for people who wanted to visit monuments and parks. Lots of websites were down for services such as the USDA.

- Most of that is stuff people could live without.

Now, if we would have kept the shutdown going for another month, there would be lots of problems with crucial services such as food stamps and veterans benefits. We didn't get that far, which is probably a very good thing!!! It could have been worse. I suggested in another thread that maybe the government should shutdown once a year so that people know what all is "the government".

"Nearly a hundred veterans from several dozen military coalitions converged at the National World War II Memorial in Washington on Tuesday to protest the partial shutdown of the government that they say could put more than 5.5 million service members at risk of not receiving their monthly benefits by November 1."